


Blood Libation

by we_all_fall



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bad Parent John Winchester, Blood Drinking, Bullied Sam Winchester, Bullying, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Child Neglect, Coming In Pants, First Kiss, Human/Vampire Relationship, Hurt Sam Winchester, M/M, Panic Attacks, Teen Sam Winchester, Vampire Lucifer (Supernatural), Vampires, Virgin Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-20 23:41:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21290096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/we_all_fall/pseuds/we_all_fall
Summary: Friendless and constantly picked on at school, Sam had to work hard to stay upbeat. Sometimes he failed. Lucifer met him when he was sobbing hopelessly from being beaten up, and for some reason decided to befriend him. He pulled Sam into his world, a world with high stakes: life and love, death and despair, healing and fading away forever.
Relationships: Lucifer/Sam Winchester
Comments: 13
Kudos: 38





	1. A Hankie

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: bullying, homophobia from asshole bullies, attempted rape (again, asshole bullies), and a dead body that definitely won't bother you if you managed to watch Supernatural.

Bruises weren’t black and blue. Not necessarily. Sam didn’t know why ‘black and blue’ was the expression when his eye was purple, not black. His cheek was blue from the day before, but it was also red smeared from half an hour ago. His arm was yellow with a purple splotch, his throat had blue and purple handprints on it, his ear dripped red, and there was a new tear in his jeans covering a tear in his skin and bruising underneath it. 

His eyes weren’t red from crying. They never turned red, no matter how much he cried. Maybe it was like the colors on vegetables. Red onions were purple, golden potatoes were dull yellow with brown skins, etc. 

He pulled his knees to his chest and rested his chin on them. The position made both his chin and his knee hurt more, but he ignored it. Everything always hurt, so it wasn’t worth dwelling on. It wasn’t like it even hurt that much. Other people dealt with a lot worse. There were kids his age with cancer and other super awful problems, so what right did Sam have to cry about a couple of bullies? It wasn’t like they were killing him. 

Salty tears dripped into the cut on his cheek, and he whimpered from the pain. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to force himself to quit crying. He was being stupid. This happened all the time, so he ought to be over it by now. Why was he never over it? More tears leaked down his cheeks, irritating the cut but washing away some of the blood. He sniffled and scrubbed at his cheeks with his hands, really just spreading the blood and tears around and making his bruises hurt worse. A sob got stuck in his throat. 

A hand holding a cloth kleenex appeared in front of his face. A handkerchief? Who even used those anymore? 

“Thanks,” he mumbled, taking it. He hoped this wasn’t another mean prank to leave him feeling even more humiliated and broken. He cleaned his face off and pressed the cloth to his cheek to stop the bleeding. It had pretty much stopped on its own already, but the blood was still trickling a bit and the pressure would help. He finally looked up to see who’d given him the hankie, but he was alone. He shrugged it off, sitting there on the ground for a few more minutes before he got up and headed home. 

Sam breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the impala wasn’t in the driveway. He was alone. He fumbled through his backpack for his key and headed inside. A shower sounded nice, so he turned the knob on the sink to make sure the water was still on. It shut off sometimes when his dad didn’t pay the bills, but that day it was still running. He smiled happily and poured himself a glass of water. 

A shower and clean clothes improved Sam’s mood by miles. He snacked on an apple, and started a baked potato for dinner since the bread would be easier to grab for breakfast in the morning. Apples, bread and potatoes were about the only foods he had in the house. He flopped down by the window to work on his homework. It was all easy and boring, but the math assignment was long enough to keep him busy until his potato was done. 

He ate, read a book, went for a long walk, and did a stretching routine before he went to sleep. His mattress was lumpy, his pillow was flat, and the heater was broken, but he fell asleep easily. His dreams were disturbed and his sleep was light that night, but he woke up feeling refreshed in the morning. 

His face in the mirror was a nightmare, but he’d survive. His eye was swollen partly shut, but he could see out of it so that was ok. He went for his morning run and took a quick shower. The bread didn’t look good, for some reason, so Sam just ate two apples for breakfast. He turned his attention to the bloody cloth he’d acquired the day before. 

It was easy enough to wash most of the blood away, although some of the stains clung to the fabric and he couldn’t get them out. The cloth was pale yellow, so the bloodstains showed up quite noticeably. It was plain, except for two stitched on letters in the corner.  _ L. D.  _ Initials? Sam didn’t know anyone with those initials, so he set the matter aside and walked to school. He did take the hankie with him, though. 

School was about average that day. Maybe a little better than average. He only got shoved twice, one of which might have been a legitimate accident, and the cafeteria food tasted a bit more than usual. He got yelled at for no reason in the corridor, though, and his English paper only got a 29/30. Apparently his sentence structures were ‘too hard to read’. They were perfectly correct! And Sam could read them just fine. He huffed angrily. It had been a great paper. Maybe a bit longer than the one page it was supposed to have been, but the teacher hadn’t given an upper limit. Just ‘at least a page’. 

“Hey, Winchester!” Drew called, “Or more like  _ Losechester _ . Cuz you never win anything.”

Sam ignored it and kept walking. He didn’t speed up since he knew it wouldn’t help. They’d get him eventually. 

“Hey, don’t you walk away from me, you little bitch.” 

Sam kept walking, he was walking, it was fine, maybe they’d forget about him if he just kept walking, walking in the alley they always beat him up in, walking, surrounded. Sam hunched his shoulders and stared at the ground, biting down on his lower lip. 

“Look at me,” Ryan demanded, getting in Sam’s face. Sam looked away. He’d noticed something odd. Drew, Ryan, Jake and Logan were all there, but where was Chauncey, the ring leader? Even when Chauncey skipped school he’d show up in the alley to hit his favorite punching bag. Was he out sick? He’d been at the top of his game the day before. 

“Did Chauncey abandon you guys?” Sam mocked, “He finally notice you’re the most sycophantic morons around?”

“Sicko fanatic?” Logan asked, confused. 

Jake shrugged. “I dunno what it means.” He spat at Sam. “Stupid nerd.”

Logan punched Sam in the face before he had a chance to dodge and knocked him down. “No coming up with words, geek boy.”

They all started kicking Sam, which kept him disoriented and hurt enough that he couldn’t get back up. He was already hurt from the day before, which made the kicks hurt more, but the words were worse. Ryan had always had a talent for hitting Sam where it hurt. “You’re so ugly it’s no wonder your mother left you. Probably for the best, she might’ve died of horror if she’d stayed to see how pathetic you are. What a loser.” 

Sam’s fists clenched. “You  _ asshole _ .” He started to get up, but Logan kicked him between the legs and he collapsed to the ground with a muffled whimper. 

“My grandma can fight better than you,” Drew snorted. 

“That’s cuz he’s a fag,” Jake said, “Fags are worse than girls. And dumber.” 

Sam clenched his teeth and stared at the ground. He wasn’t sure if it was true or not, it was hard to tell what a crush was and he’d never got past awkward hand holding with anyone to know if he was really attracted to them or not.

“Is that true?” Ryan asked, excitement clear in his voice. “You suck dick, Winchester? I always knew you were an ass kisser.” He laughed, a delighted sound that terrified Sam. 

Logan and Jake laughed too, so Sam guessed Ryan was the new ring leader in Chauncey’s absence. It was worse, a lot worse. Chauncey had always focused on beating Sam up. He just wanted a punching bag. Ryan was creepy and scarily unpredictable. Sam didn’t want to know what he wanted. 

“Stupid long haired gay,” Logan mocked, kicking at the back of Sam’s head. He looked to Ryan for approval. 

Ryan was smiling. “Guys. Let’s take his jeans off!”

“Um,” Drew said uncertainly, “is that really a good idea.”

“Hell yes,” Jake said. 

Sam pushed himself to his feet and tried to run, but Logan grabbed him by the backpack and jerked him down again. “Stop!” Sam yelled, “Let me go!”

“Stay down,” Ryan ordered, kicking Sam in the face and making his nose bleed. 

Sam held his jacket sleeve to his nose to quell the bleeding and tried not to cry. 

“You two hold his arms down, and Jake and I’ll get his jeans down,” Ryan instructed, grinning nastily. 

“No, no, don’t!” Sam squirmed and kicked, but he never had a chance. Ryan got Sam’s jeans down around his knees, and Jake stepped on Sam’s dick through his boxers. Sam’s cry of pain was loud enough to attract attention from a middle aged lady walking past the entrance to the alley. 

“Hey! What’s going on?”

The bullies bolted. They didn’t want to deal with an adult. Sam got up as quickly as he could and yanked his jeans up. He couldn’t handle some lady worrying about him or calling an ambulance or anything. He was pretty sure he didn’t even have medical insurance to pay for it. 

“Thanks,” Sam called awkwardly. She looked horrified. Sam realized there was blood all over his face and decided running was a great idea. 

A few minutes later he sat in the same spot he’d been in the day before. A lot of the blood on his face had dried, but his nose was still dripping red. He shoved L. D.’s hankie up his nose and tilted his head back like he’d been told to do in the past. Blood trickled unpleasantly down the back of his throat, and he coughed it into his hand. His nose burned painfully. 

“Are you ok?”

Sam just about jumped out of his skin. “How’d you get there?!” he yelped, staring at the man who was sitting  _ right next _ to him like it was the most natural thing in the world. How the hell had Sam missed seeing him?

“I walked,” the man deadpanned, “or maybe I flew.”

Sam just stared at him. He’d had a long day, which was making it hard to process the stranger who he could’ve sworn had popped out of thin air. 

“If you’re getting blood in your mouth you can tilt your head forward,” the stranger said, “It’ll soak through the cloth faster, but it usually works.” 

Sam tipped his head forward. “Are you L. D.?”

“Lucifer,” the man introduced, offering Sam his hand. 

“I’m Sam.” Sam shook Lucifer’s hand. He wasn’t even going to try to process the fact that the guy who’d just appeared out of nowhere had the devil’s name. “Who uses cloth kleenexes anymore?”

“It’s better for the earth than wasting all that paper,” Lucifer defended, “Human paper use is disgusting.” 

Sam giggled. “You say human like you’re not.” 

Lucifer raised an eyebrow. “And what makes you so sure I’m human?” 

Sam studied him for a moment. “You look like a human.” Lucifer’s pupils were a bit small and his blue-gray irises a little large, but nothing truly of note. “You talk like a human. You smell like a human.” Lucifer’s smell was strangely strong, something like almond or coconut with cinnamon. “So you’re a human.” 

“You can smell me with all that blood in your nose?” Lucifer questioned. 

Sam shrugged. “I’ve got one nostril free. And I think the bleeding might’ve stopped.” He carefully pulled Lucifer’s hankie out of his nose. It was a blood soaked mess, but no new blood flowed out of Sam’s nose. 

“You wanna clean off your face?” Lucifer asked, “You’ve got blood all over.” 

“Right,” Sam said, embarrassed that he’d had a whole conversation with a stranger with blood all over his face. He rummaged through his backpack and pulled out a bottle of water to wet the cloth with. “This is already blood soaked,” he noted, looking at the pale yellow fabric. This wasn’t gonna work. 

Lucifer pulled an ice pink hankie from his pocket and offered it to Sam. “Here. Use this.” 

Sam took the hankie, his fingers brushing against Lucifer’s. He jumped a little, spilled too much water on the hankie and all over his lap, and set about cleaning his face off. “Thanks,” he mumbled in embarrassment. Why was this conversation so hard? Gray-blue eyes and scruffy blond hair, that was why. 

“I’ve found you badly beat up two days in a row,” Lucifer said, “Is it an everyday occurrence?”

Sam shrugged miserably. “Not on weekends. And it’s fine. It’s not that bad, really.”

“You’re lucky you don’t need to go to the hospital,” Lucifer stated. 

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” Sam insisted. 

Lucifer sighed. “Ok, so, you’re fine,” he agreed. He shifted a bit, and a rainbow locket slipped past the collar of his jacket. The bright colors didn’t go with the dulled elegance of the rest of his outfit. 

“What’s that?” Sam asked. Changing the subject sounded like a great idea to him just then. 

Lucifer tucked the locket back under his shirt. “A gift from someone I lost.” 

“Oh,” Sam said, getting from the expression in Lucifer’s eyes that he was talking about someone dead. “I’m sorry.”

“It was years ago,” Lucifer said, “I’m over it. I’m fine.” 

“You’re fine like how I’m fine,” Sam noted, “You’re not really.”

Lucifer smiled weakly. “You got me.”

After that there wasn’t anything more to say. They sat there for a while before Sam went home. He did his homework, read a book, went for a walk, had a baked potato for dinner again, fixed the heater in his room, etc. Just normal things. He also washed the blood out of his clothes and the two hankies he’d gotten from Lucifer. He’d have to see if he could find Lucifer after school to return them. He curled up under a blanket with a book and read himself to sleep. 

School the next day was a nightmare. Ryan came over and made degrading, creepy comments while Sam was trying to eat lunch, so Sam finished up as quickly as possible and fled the cafeteria. He hid in an isolated bathroom, thinking he’d be safe. 

Somehow Jake had followed him there without him noticing. Maybe Sam was just predictable. He did tend to run for the same places every time something scared him. He managed to get inside a stall and lock the door, but Jake had definitely seen where he’d gone. There was silence in the bathroom for a few minutes. Maybe Jake had left? 

Jake popped his head in under the door, startling Sam, who yelped and jumped backwards, stumbling against the toilet and falling over. It just wasn’t his day. 

“Hey, Sammy,” Jake sneered, pushing himself along the bathroom floor to get farther into the cubicle. 

“Don’t call me that,” Sam snapped, trying to hide the little quiver in his voice. 

“I’ll call you whatever I want, you little whore,” Jake hissed, finally getting to his feet. 

It was just Jake. Ryan, Chauncey, Logan and Drew all weren’t there. Sam thought he might have a chance against just Jake. So he threw a punch. It was clumsy and probably hurt Sam’s hand as much as Jake’s chin, but it connected and knocked Jake backwards. Sam shoved past him and tried to get the door unlocked, but Jake grabbed a handful of Sam’s hair and yanked him backwards with it. He kicked at the back of Sam’s knees to knock him down and slapped him across the cheek. 

Before Sam could recover, Jake had grabbed his hair again and was yanking him around to face the other way. The grip was too painful for Sam to fight, so he ended up on his knees with his head just about in the toilet. He was expecting Jake to push his head into the toilet since that was standard bullying garbage, but instead Jake reached around Sam’s legs and tore open his fly. Sam squawked in horror and tried to turn around, so Jake grabbed his head and smashed it down against the toilet seat. Sam was dazed for a moment: long enough for Jake to drag Sam’s pants and underwear down, pull his ass cheeks apart, and poke at his hole. 

That was enough to clear Sam’s head. He kicked Jake as hard as he could, using the momentum to duck and roll sideways under the barrier and into the next stall, which was empty. He’d clipped his shoulder on the barrier, but it was nothing that’d slow him down. He was on his feet in an instant, but he paused for a moment to pull his pants back up, long enough for Jake to get to the entrance to the stall and block it. 

“Got you,” he sneered. 

Sam’s eyes darted around as he searched for a means of escape. And found it. The stall doors opened inward. Sam grabbed the door and slammed it shut, literally into Jake’s face. He thought he heard bones crunch. Sam ripped open the door again and ran out of that bathroom as fast as he possibly could. 

Sam went through the rest of the schoolday feeling as though there was an invisible wall separating him from everything. His movements were mechanical. He answered when teachers asked him questions, and they seemed content, but he didn’t know what he was saying. He got beat up after school as usual, but they quickly gave up when he didn’t speak, react, or even seem to hear them. Jake wasn’t there, Sam knew that much. He thought Chauncey was missing again as well. 

“Sam.”

Something in the voice made Sam react. He flinched and looked over to see who’d spoken. 

“Sam,” Lucifer repeated. 

Sam relaxed visibly. “Hi.” 

“Your eyes.” Lucifer’s voice was soft and upset. “Sam. They’re empty.”

“I had a really bad day,” Sam explained emotionlessly. 

“Would talking about it help?”

“Jake cornered me in the bathroom,” Sam reported, “He and Ryan have developed a sexual interest in me. He tried to- to-” Sam’s voice broke, and suddenly he was crying. “I don’t know why I’m so upset,” Sam sobbed, “It’s not like he did anything. I got away. But h-he wanted- he tried to- almost-” Sam hid his face in the pastel yellow hankie he’d been planning to give back to Lucifer. 

“You’re safe,” Lucifer told him, “Jake won’t touch you again.”

Sam shook his head. “No, I’ll go back to school on Monday, and he’ll be there. Unless I scared him off when I hit him, but he’s pretty persistent and he knows he’s a lot bigger and stronger than me. I’m scared, Lucifer. What if- what if n-next time he- he- rapes me. I’ve never done anything like that and I don’t want my first time to be with some dumb bully who always fails math class.” Sam started crying again. 

“Could you move? Change to a different school?” 

Sam chuckled. “Nope. Dad would never do something as big as moving for me. He’d probably just tell me getting bullied is a character building experience. And mom doesn’t want me, just Dean, my brother, so.” He shrugged. 

“Sounds like a big, ugly mess,” Lucifer noted. 

“Yeah.” Sam felt calmer. He cleaned his face off with the hankie before speaking. “So get this, my parents got a divorce four years ago. No surprise there, they’d been fighting since before I was born. My dad threw a fit about it, quit his job, and started doing some ‘secret’ job with inconsistent hours and paychecks. So that didn’t look too good to the judge. Mom has a well paying job and could’ve supported two kids easily. But nooo. She asked for my brother and specifically requested not to get me. Seriously, who does that?”

“Your mother, apparently,” Lucifer said, amused, “She sounds awful. Is your brother ok?”

“Dean’s in college now. He’s fine. He’s hoping to join the FBI when he gets older. He watched too many spy movies when he was a kid.” 

“My brother Mike always wanted to be FBI, too!” Lucifer said. 

“Really? What’d he end up doing?” 

“Nursing. Quite different, as careers go.”

“I can’t see Dean as a nurse,” Sam said, “It’d be funny, though. Oh, I just remembered- this is yours.” He offered Lucifer the pink hankie. 

“Keep it,” Lucifer told him, “You need it more than I do.”

“Did you just quote Lucy Pevensie?”

Lucifer nodded. “She stole part of my name. That gives me the right to quote her.”

Sam laughed. There was a brief silence as the conversation lapsed, and then Sam asked, “Are you gonna keep showing up here? It’s three days in a row, now.”

“Do you want me to keep showing up here?”

Sam smiled shyly at Lucifer. “Yes. I would like that.” 

“See you tomorrow then, Sam.” And Lucifer smiled and left. 

Lucifer might’ve broken the wall Sam had shielded himself with, calmed him down and cheered him up, but Sam was still a mess that night. He tossed and turned instead of sleeping, not really having defined nightmares but still freaking himself out. He usually liked to sleep in on weekends, but by 5:45 Sam was beyond done with lying in bed. He threw clothes on and headed outside for his morning walk. 

It was cold outside. Not colder than it had been the last few mornings, but it felt that way. He usually liked to jog in the mornings, but he felt like if he went faster than his walking pace he’d get that uneasy feeling that he was being chased. So he walked along empty streets in the predawn darkness, trying not to jump at shadows and act like an idiot. He was relieved when he reached the little wooded park. People were always cutting through it, but it felt private and secluded, like it was Sam’s. 

He walked between the leafless trees, running his fingers along their bark and listening to the noise the wind made racing around the branches. He leaned his head against the trunk of a tree, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. It was so peaceful and undisturbed in this bit of woods. No other place could make him feel this safe. 

He opened his eyes and stepped around the tree, his gaze flickering to the ground to check for roots. His face paled, and he stumbled back into the tree. “Jake?!” he gasped. 

Jake was just lying there, on the ground. Pale. Lifeless. His eyes were wide open, staring right up at Sam. 

Sam covered his mouth in horror. He’d only ever seen dead bodies at funerals, and this was totally different. Was Jake dead? Maybe he’d just gotten lost and frozen and doctors would be able to revive him. Sam didn’t know. He leaned over Jake. He didn’t see breath. And with Jake’s eyes wide open and staring like that- he had to be dead. 

Sam had to check, though. He’d heard stories about people who looked dead when they were really alive. He reached for Jake’s neck to take his pulse, but his hand paused when he noticed something weird. There were two small, circular wounds at the base of his neck, like giant needle injection sights. Sam guessed they might be bug bites? He didn’t know. 

He wasn’t sure where to find the pulse in someone’s neck, so he felt around for it. It wasn’t there. So either Jake was dead, or Sam was doing it wrong. He reached for Jake’s wrist, where he knew how to find a pulse for sure. He pressed his fingers to the spot and waited. Shifted them and waited some more. 

It should’ve been obvious, he supposed. That the pale, lifeless figure with open, glazed eyes lying still on the ground was dead. But it still came as a shock. 

Sam got his phone out, dialed a number. 

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“I, I found- Jake. I think he’s dead. There’s no pulse.”


	2. A Wild Goose Chase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not sex so I couldn't figure out how to tag it, but there's underage something weird sexual something in here. So warning. It's a teen not a kid, so it isn't that weird. Just, if underage is something that bothers you.

He didn’t know how he felt. There were so many different feelings trapped inside of him, and he couldn’t focus on one for long before another would take over. He was happy, because an awful person was dead and nobody else would get hurt by him. He was sad, because someone had died. Jake was nasty, true, but he was still a person and he could’ve improved. Maybe he’d deserved to die, Sam didn’t know, but he knew he kind of wished Jake was alive while being overwhelmingly relieved he was dead. It was a huge weight off his shoulders to know that Jake could never corner him in the bathroom like that again. He was safe. He didn’t need to cower and jump at small noises, because his would-be rapist was dead and he was safe. 

In other ways he wasn’t safe. Ryan could still hurt him. Whatever had killed Jake could get Sam. Jake had been young and healthy; he shouldn’t have died so easily. Sam didn’t really understand how it had happened. Someone had said blood loss was the cause of death, but there hadn’t been any blood in the woods, at least not any Sam could see. And unless there were cuts under his clothes Jake had just had the two little cuts on his neck. They couldn’t have bled enough to kill him, surely. So what ever had happened Sam was scared and uneasy. And relieved, elated, confused, guilty for feeling happy Jake was dead. He was a mess. 

He couldn’t get his head sorted out, so he focused on the problem that was easiest to work on, trusting that his emotions would make more sense when he was calm and focused. He needed to find out how Jake had died. Once he knew that he’d worry about the other stuff. He grabbed a notepad and headed to the local library to do some research on death, bite marks, and death-by-bite-mark in the forest. 

Sam’s research was made difficult by all the stupid vampire myths that kept popping up, and hours later all he had come up with was that bat bites looked fairly similar to the marks he’d seen on Jake’s neck. A little smaller, but pretty much the same. In the US, bats lived mainly in the four corners states, with plenty around California and some in Kentucky. But there weren’t many bats where Sam lived, and they would be in hibernation for the winter. They weren’t aggressive creatures and normally wouldn’t attack and bite a human. The spot on the throat where Jake had been bitten was a massive artery, but everywhere Sam looked agreed that bats never killed humans. So what had killed Jake? No other animal left a bite mark like that. 

Maybe Jake had gone somewhere where a bat lived. He could’ve been bitten by the bat and then killed by someone or something else between where he’d run into the bat and where Sam had found him dead. If Sam could find a cave or rock crevice, somewhere a bat might live, he could trace Jake’s path and get some answers. He was also wondering if Jake might’ve died somewhere else and been moved to where Sam found him. His cause of death was blood loss and there was no blood on the scene, so it made sense. Sam compiled a list of places bats might live and headed back to his house to see if he had a flashlight. He was going to get to the bottom of this.

He didn’t have a flashlight, but he didn’t think it mattered much. He was unlikely to find a deep enough cave to get lost in, light reflected well off snow and kept winter nights from getting too dark, and he had hours and hours until night time anyway. It’d be fine.

He started near the place where he’d found Jake’s body earlier and set out deeper and deeper into the woods, searching for anything notable. The woods were vast, never really stopping and thus making Sam’s life difficult. It was such a challenging place to search, and he had no idea when he’d looked far enough and he should turn back. It was a while before he stumbled on anything of note, and he was quite far out when he found it. 

“Police tape?” he wondered. 

There was an officer he recognized from earlier that day standing guard, or processing or something a frozen body.

“What are you doing here, son?” the officer asked. 

“Just walking in the woods,” Sam said, “Which is looking less and less safe.” He stepped forward and got a closer look at the corpse. “Wait. Is that  _ Chauncey _ ?”

“We haven’t IDed the corpse, yet,” the officer said, “You know him?” 

Sam nodded. “Yeah, he’s in most of my classes. He and Jake were friends.”

“When’s the last time you saw Chauncey alive?” 

“Um, a couple days. He was sick. I thought.”

“His body’s been out here a couple of days. When, specifically, did you see him last.”

“Wednesday,” Sam said, “After school. He was, uh.” Sam’s hand found its way to a fading bruise on his cheek that Chauncey’s fist had left, and he quickly dropped his hand and stuck it in his pocket. “We talked. He wasn’t in class Thursday morning, so I assumed he was out sick. I guess he was dead.” 

“Those bruises on your face. Did Chauncey give them to you?” 

“Only some of them,” Sam said, “All the recent ones are from Jake. Or Ryan. Or Logan. Or Drew. I think a couple are from Noah, too.” His voice had gotten progressively higher and higher as he talked. “You know what? I don’t really wanna talk about this.” He cast around for a way to change the subject, and his eyes caught on two circular stab marks on Chauncey’s neck. Tooth marks? Another bat bite, like what he’d seen on Jake? “I should go meet my friend,” he told the officer, “I hope you figure out how they died.” 

He went to find Lucifer. Sam was a bit late, he thought, but Lucifer wasn’t there yet. Sam waited impatiently. He really wanted to check the rest of the woods, but he didn’t want to ditch Lucifer. Honestly, he wasn’t sure about going into the woods by himself, either. Two kids his age had gone out there alone and died. He hoped safety in numbers would be enough to protect him if he went with Lucifer.

Lucifer turned up, yawning with circles under his eyes. “Sorry,” he told Sam, “I overslept.” 

“It’s four in the afternoon,” Sam said. 

“It’s Saturday,” Lucifer said, “Nobody wakes up on time on Saturday. I’m just a little later than average.”

“Lucifer, noon is ‘later than average’,” Sam said, “This is  _ four pm _ .”

“How’s your day been?” Lucifer asked, “I assume you got up at six am.”

“5:45,” Sam said proudly, “and I woke up early. I found two dead bodies out walking in the woods.” 

Lucifer blinked tiredly. “Bodies walking in the woods. Like zombies?” 

“No, _ I  _ was walking in the woods,” Sam said, “the bodies were just lying there.” 

“Anybody I know?” Lucifer asked. 

“You know Jake or Chauncey?” 

“Nope,” Lucifer said, “And I’m too tired to be upset about somebody random dying, so unless they’re your friends I don't care. You don’t look like they’re your friends.”

“They weren’t.”

“Great, I totally don’t care then,” Lucifer said, “Wait, you said Jake.  _ That  _ Jake? From yesterday?”

Sam nodded. 

“Karma,” Lucifer said, “Was Chauncey an asshole, too?” 

“Not as bad of one, but yeah,” Sam said, “And now they’re dead. So get this, the police said Jake died of exsanguination.”

“I hope it was long, painful exsanguination,” Lucifer said.

“The only wound I saw was what looked like a bat bite on his neck. And Chauncey had the same kind of bite on the exact same spot on his neck. Bats aren’t vicious so I don’t know if that’s what the bite is, but whatever it is it happened to both victims. So we have to go to the woods and find out what did this!” 

“You want to go to the place where two people died and try to find what killed them?” Lucifer asked incredulously, “Sure. Why ever not. It’s not like there’s a chance we’ll die too.” 

“It’ll be fun,” Sam said, “I think they both died at night, and they were alone. We’ll be safe. C’mon, please?” 

“Alright. But if we find a cave full of skeletons or something you’re on your own,” Lucifer said. 

“Deal!” Sam agreed. He grabbed Lucifer’s hand and took off for the woods. 

After they’d meandered through the woods for a while without finding anything, Lucifer ducked under a thick curtain of branches and out of sight. “Sam! Come see this!” he called. 

“What is it?” Sam asked, following. 

He found Lucifer admiring a small, frozen waterfall. “There are caves behind waterfalls,” Lucifer said, “You were looking for bats.”

“It’d be a great bat hideout!” Sam looked for a way behind the sheets of ice. “But it’s all iced over. If there’s anything behind the ice we’re not getting to it.”

“The dead kids wouldn’t have been able to get inside, either,” Lucifer said, “so not the place.”

“Yeah.” Sam sighed. “I was hoping we’d find something. It’s been hours. What if we don’t find anything?”

“You do realize tomorrow is a thing, right? We’ll just try again then.”

“Do or do not: there is no try,” Sam quoted despondently.

“Luckily that quote doesn’t apply in the real world, or we’d all be screwed,” Lucifer said, “C’mon. Let’s keep looking.”

They meandered the woods, looking. And looking. The sunset tinted the snow pink, purple and gold. It was lovely, but the colors soon faded with the sun. Dusk darkened into night, and Sam started feeling nervous. He was with Lucifer, which helped him feel safer, but another of the reasons he’d felt ok going out in the woods in the first place was that it had been daytime and the deaths had been at night. It was night, and it didn’t feel so safe anymore. He stuck a bit closer to Lucifer’s side. 

They came to a place where there were two basic ways forward. “Left looks a bit safer,” Lucifer said, heading towards it. 

Sam had to agree. The way to the right looked something like a nightmare. Thorns, rocks, ice, and something ominous in the atmosphere that couldn’t be attached to a physical object. “Wait,” Sam said. 

Lucifer turned back. “Sam?” he inquired. 

“We should go right,” Sam said, “because it looks dangerous. We’re looking for something that can kill. So, we go right.” 

“I don’t like it,” Lucifer said. 

“I don’t either, but something tells me it’s the right way,” Sam said. 

“Fine,” Lucifer said, “Don’t fall on the ice.” 

“Thanks,” Sam said. He knew he was the one who wanted to investigate, the one who was trying to chase the danger. Lucifer was there to support him, and he was grateful. They helped each other over the ice and up the rocks. Sam’s hair got caught in a thornbush. He tried to untangle it, but he couldn’t see what he was doing and the thorns were tugging painfully at his scalp. 

“Stay still,” Lucifer said. He worked to untangle Sam’s hair from the thorns. It only took him a moment, but the moment dragged on for Sam as he contemplated the intimacy of the situation: their bodies close together, Lucifer’s hands in his hair. Sam straightened up in relief when Lucifer was done, but that put their faces about two inches apart. Lucifer stilled, looking into Sam’s eyes. His breath was hot on Sam’s cheek. Sam was sure he was blushing visibly, he’d just have to hope Lucifer mistook the redness for cold. Lucifer brushed Sam’s hair out of his face, his hand lingering on Sam’s cheek. He’d just have to lean forward and down a hairsbreadth and their lips would touch. Instead he turned away, leaving Sam confused and his reactive teenage body thoroughly turned on. 

“Are you coming?” Lucifer asked. 

Sam nodded and hurried after him. Luckily it was cold enough that a few thoughts of dead bodies, school lunches and other atrocities were able to quickly kill Sam’s erection. Lucifer was waiting for him in a clearing with a small, run down house. Sam did a double take. “A house?” 

“That’s my house,” Lucifer said, “Guess I’m not lost anymore.” 

“You live out in the middle of the woods?” 

“There’s a path in the front,” Lucifer said, “It’s only about a quarter of a mile to a proper road.”

“Well, we won’t find anything murderous here,” Sam said, “I guess we should’ve gone left like you wanted.” The creepy feeling he’d gotten earlier was obviously off. He was still feeling it, in fact it had increased, and he didn’t know why. 

“Back over the dangerous ice, then. Fun,” Lucifer said sarcastically. 

They got back to the normal part of the woods with no serious problems. They walked for a couple minutes, and Sam was feeling pretty down. Twice he’d thought they’d finally found something, and both times it’d been nothing. “What if there’s nothing to find?” 

“Then I’ve gone on a fun hike with you for no reason, and I don’t regret a moment of it,” Lucifer replied. 

“That’s a nice way to look at it,” Sam agreed. He felt a bit better. He’d been worried Lucifer would think what they were doing was a waste of time. 

There was silence for several minutes. Not silence really, since the rustle of branches and the crunch of snow under Sam’s feet were still there. Lucifer was walking a few steps behind Sam, who was tired and choosing the path of least resistance. 

“Wait,” Lucifer said. 

Sam’s steps halted. 

“You wanted to take the scary path,” Lucifer said. He motioned to the thick barrier of trees on their left. 

“It looks more rough than scary to me,” Sam said. 

Lucifer shrugged. “We can go whichever way.” But there was a gleam in his eye that Sam interpreted as a challenge. Did Lucifer think he wanted to avoid it because it scared him? He was definitely going that way. He forced his way through the thick row of trees and fell down a steep slope he hadn’t been expecting. He landed at the bottom, bruised and snowy but uninjured. 

“So get this, it’s really steep all of a sudden and you have to be careful,” he called up. 

“Got it,” Lucifer called back. 

At the bottom of the slope was a flat plain, all covered in snow except for a rectangular patch in the middle that was bare ground. “This is weird.”

“Definitely,” Lucifer said. He’d climbed down more carefully and thus wasn’t snow covered like Sam. “What do you think it is?” He walked across the plain and stood by the bare patch. 

“A grave,” Sam said. 

“It’s recent,” Lucifer said, “This is mostly last night’s snow we’re standing in here. And it was snowing some of the time we were walking here. So for this grave to be bare it’s maybe half an hour old.”

“You mean we were walking around in the woods while somebody killed someone and buried them right here?!” Sam’s voice was shrill. 

“Yeah,” Lucifer said. He didn’t seem that bothered. 

“No,” Sam said, “No way. Wait, this actually doesn’t make sense. The ground is frozen, right? So how’d the killer dig the grave?”

“With the right tools it wouldn’t matter,” Lucifer said, “but there’s no sign of anything like that, and I don’t know how you’d get any kind of tool all the way out here.”

Lucifer was right. Looking around, Sam saw that the ridge he’d fallen down circled the plain entirely, and the trees were thick all along the top of it. The snow all around them was immaculate, the only marks being a singular set of footprints leading up to where Sam stood. There was no way someone had dug a grave there since the snow had fallen. 

“I don’t get it,” Sam said. 

“It is a bit hard to understand,” Lucifer said, “Maybe somebody with light feet came by and cleared off the grave.”

“Why would they do that?”

“It’s just the sort of thing you end up doing, sometimes, when somebody you love’s gone,” Lucifer said. His voice cracked a bit. 

“The locket?” Sam asked. 

“What?” Lucifer’s eyes were suspiciously wet. 

“The rainbow one,” Sam said, “that you didn’t wanna talk about. He gave it to you, or she, I don’t know.”

“He.” Lucifer pulled the locket out from under his coat and thumbed it open. “My little brother, Gabriel.” He showed Sam the picture in the locket. “Hael had a really hard time getting him to sit still long enough for her to paint this. It was his idea, too. He wanted me to have something to remember him by in case-”

“I’m sorry,” Sam said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. He couldn’t imagine the pain of losing a brother. He tried to think of what it’d be like to lose Dean, but even after barely seeing Dean for four years it was incomprehensible. 

“It’s getting late,” Lucifer said, “We should get out of the woods.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, good idea.” He turned and headed back to the spot he’d fallen down from. Climbing up the icy slope was hard. He nearly fell a couple times, but he finally reached the trees and scrambled through them. 

“I’m not sure how to get back,” Sam said. 

“I can get us back to my house,” Lucifer said, “and from there it’s easy to get to town; you’ll be fine.”

The walk back to Lucifer’s house seemed to take a long time to Sam, longer than the walk out had been. He figured it was partly his tiredness and partly Lucifer’s withdrawal into what Sam guessed were painful memories of losing his brother. He shouldn’t have brought up that Lucifer was easily thinking like someone who’d lost a loved one. How was it any of his business what Lucifer was going through? They’d only known each other for four days. 

They got to the rough bit. Sam slipped on ice and just caught himself on a tree trunk. Lucifer helped him over the rest of it, a supportive if silent and despondent companion. He walked with Sam around his little house, and stopped in front of the start of a footpath. 

“This will take you right to Carol Road,” Lucifer said. 

“It should be easy to get home from there,” Sam said, “I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

“Let’s meet at seven instead of three-thirty,” Lucifer said, “It’s easier for me.” 

“It’ll be dark by then,” Sam said, worried. 

“We were just in the woods in the dark for hours with no problems,” Lucifer said, “I wouldn’t worry about it.” 

“Alright,” Sam said, “See you tomorrow night. Bye.” He headed down the path away from Lucifer. It was a long, twisted quarter mile to the road. And even then Sam didn’t feel entirely happy. It was the empty part of the road, no lights, no houses, strange shadows and trees blocking the moon. He felt exposed and wished he wasn’t alone. Maybe he wasn’t. He felt like something was following him. 

Could there be something on the road behind him? Was the crunch of snow under his feet really that loud, or was someone matching his steps? He stopped and whipped around. Nothing. The road was abandoned: Sam was the only one stupid enough to be outside that late on that night. He hurried on down the road, assuring himself that he was perfectly safe. Nobody was going to jump out of the shadows and scare him. 

It was then, of course, that a dark figure jumped out of the shadows under the trees and grabbed him. Sam screeched in shock and tried to launch himself away, but whoever it was restrained him effortlessly and pinned his arms down with just an arm around his waist. “Let go!” Sam shrieked, “Who are you? What do you want; get away!” He thought he was about to die and he was terrified. 

Something sharp dug into the side of his neck and pierced the sensitive skin there. Shock. What was it? A tooth? Teeth, digging into the side of his neck. Cutting, piercing, digging. Sam’s mouth fell open. He’d never felt anything like that. The sharp sting of pain that wasn’t only pain, that was somehow pleasure. Intense, overwhelming, the kind of feeling that demanded all his attention and focus to the point where he completely forgot to keep trying to fight off his attacker. 

The teeth tugged loose with a baffling sensation that had him both moaning and mourning the loss of the pressure pain. He didn’t know what to think or feel. He couldn’t handle this, it was too new, too intense. Soft lips brushed the skin around the wound, fastening on and sucking. It was warm and wet and amazing, perfect. It was way more than he’d ever felt before. 

The sucking, the blood loss, it should’ve scared him. But he relaxed. He didn’t feel safe. He didn’t feel scared, either: he didn’t know what to feel. He felt high and he never wanted it to end. Blood poured from his neck, and his attacker sucked it up. Lips were heaven against his skin even as his head spun from losing too much blood. 

Dizziness and the helpless, lost feeling that accompanied it seemed to act as an aphrodisiac. He needed to fight, he knew he did, but fighting this felt as impossible as breathing underwater. He opened his mouth to protest, to beg: “Please. Please! More. Ahh! I need- I need- please.” He couldn’t want it to stop. He couldn’t. 

Lips, sucking, pressure against his skin, stinging cuts, heat, building heat, fire, he was on fire, burning up and it was the only thing he could ever want. The hand around his waist to restrain him went lower, palming him through his jeans. He was already harder than he’d ever been, and the mix of sensation was enough to push him over the edge. 

He tensed up and came with a choked off cry as his attacker sucked his blood out of his neck. It was weird and messed up and so, so good. The press of lips eased, teeth grazed his neck, making him jerk and whine. He was so helpless, so completely under the spell of whoever was holding him and had just drunk his blood. He didn’t even mind. If he died he’d die happy. 

A tongue licked and swirled over the injured skin, and the last bits of electrifying pain disappeared. Lips sucked against the skin, not drawing blood, just sucking, and Sam’s eyes fluttered shut in contentment. His arms were freed, and his attacker just stood there and held him. It was intimate in an almost scary way, especially since Sam had never even seen his attacker’s face. When he got his strength back he managed to straighten up, and his attacker let him go and faded back into the forest before Sam could get a good look at him. He was left squinting tiredly into the darkness, trying dizzily to figure out what the hell had just happened and how he felt about it. He felt faint, he knew that much. 


	3. Confused Thoughts

Getting home that night was hard. Sam was dazed, injured and freezing. And his pants were sticky and uncomfortable, because, well, he’d come in them. Which was awkward and embarrassing and baffling and sort of weird and scary and, yeah, Sam was mixed up. He’d never come with someone there before. And he wanted to be devastatedly embarrassed and panicky about what the other person thought of him and everything, but he had no idea who it was, so how could he be embarrassed? But what if it was someone he knew? 

What if someone he knew was a- a- Sam didn’t know. What kind of person bit people? It was sort of vampiric, but vampires weren’t real. Bats made so much more sense. But there was no way he could possibly fool himself into thinking he’d just been- attacked? -whatever had happened, by a bat. Bats didn’t have hands and stuff. And it wouldn’t have been embarrassing and scary and awkward to have been- attacked, he’d go with attacked- by a bat. Was it a vampire? No, because vampires weren’t real. 

Had Sam just had his first sexual experience with a vampire?! No. Impossible. Because vampires  _ weren’t real _ . Right? Was the bite on his neck the same as the bites on Chauncey and Jake’s necks? Had they been vampire sexed to death? Was he gonna die, too? He really didn’t want to die, and he also felt irrationally hurt that his attacker had bitten other people. He’d felt special, and he didn’t want to think about his attacker going around biting just anyone. That was probably the stupidest thought he’d ever had. 

He should just go home. Maybe he could figure out what had happened later. It was surprisingly cold on the way home. He knew the night was cold, but not that cold. He was  _ freezing _ . Sam went to cut through the woods like he normally would, but paused. Jake and Chauncey had died in the woods. What if they’d gotten attacked like Sam, and then because of the attack something in the woods had killed them? But it would be a much longer trip to go around by the road; there was a reason Sam never went that way. There was no reason the woods would be linked to the attacks, anyway, he was probably just being paranoid. He cut through the woods, hoping he wouldn’t get attacked again. Or hoping he’d get attacked again? His cheeks felt hot and he wasn’t sure. 

Sam got out of the woods unscathed and reached his house. Besides being frozen and exhausted, he was fine. He didn’t feel like he was about to drop dead. So that left the question: what was different about what had happened to him compared to what had happened to Jake and Chauncey? He needed an explanation for why he was alive and they weren’t. Maybe he  _ was _ special. Butterflies exploded in his stomach for no apparent reason at that thought. 

Sam went to the mirror to check the marks on his neck. Two small holes next to each other, fang marks. Not from a bat, but from something that was at least humanoid. They weren’t in the same spot as the ones he’d seen on Chauncey and Jake, but that was the only difference. Maybe that was the key difference, the thing that had left Sam alive. It could be, quite easily. That left him wondering if it had been on purpose or an accident. There’d been no violence, no confusion during the attack. It had felt well planned and perfectly executed. Sam knew nothing he’d done had had any effect on what had happened. So his attacker must’ve planned ahead to leave him alive. But why? 

Sam was shivering. His fingers were blue. He made himself change into a drier and more comfortable outfit while he tried to think the situation through. His hands were shaky and uncoordinated, so changing clothes turned into a task that required his full attention and gave him no time to think. Afterwards he made himself a cup of hot cocoa, closed all the blinds in the house, and hid under a pile of blankets with his hot cocoa, trying to warm up. 

He needed to carefully go over all the information he had and put it all together to come to the most logical conclusion. That couldn’t be that hard. Some magical answer would just appear, making logical sense and turning everything ok again. There were a lot of things he knew about the situation, so he’d start with those. There was someone in the woods who drank blood. He didn’t know what that person looked like, but he’d felt enough of their body to know that they were shaped like a human. And wasn’t that an embarrassing thing to know. 

His attacker had killed two people before him. Probably. It could be like a Stefan and Damon scenario with a good vampire and a bad vampire, although in that case he’d guess it would be the bad vampire that’d bit him. The whole idea felt a bit too silly and contrived for real life, anyway. But who was he kidding? He’d thrown logical reality out the window when he’d even considered a vampire as a possible explanation. 

He wondered if Jake and Chauncey had reacted like he had. He hadn’t seen anything to indicate anything like  _ that _ had happened at the crime scenes, but he hadn’t exactly looked. What if he was the only person to get aroused by having their blood drunk ever and his attacker thought he was some kind of twisted weirdo? What if he  _ was _ a twisted weirdo? Should he have liked that? It didn’t look much like anything he’d seen in a movie. He’d heard about people biting their lover’s neck, but it had just sounded weird and random to him. It still sounded weird, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want it now that he had some idea what it’d be like. He imagined Lucifer biting his neck, even though he knew it’d never happen. Lucifer was older, not even a college student but a real grownup. He wouldn’t be interested in a stupid kid like Sam. 

But Sam’s attacker was obviously interested. Maybe. He’d sort of jerked Sam off, so that meant he was interested, right? Was it possible to have two crushes at the same time, one hopelessly impossible one and one on somebody completely unknown? Evidently it was, because it was happening. Sam felt like an idiot. Nobody else got a crush on somebody who grabbed them in the woods and fed on their blood. That was like a fly crushing on a spider. 

Was it feeding? Because Sam didn’t actually know. He knew his attacker had drunk his blood, but not why. It could be food, pleasure, some kind of weird science experiment, ok, no, it was probably food. Well, drink, he supposed, but it was the same thing. Was he really just going to accept that vampires were probably real? He felt oddly ok with the idea. In the morning he might change his mind, but at night after a shocking encounter like that monsters felt like less of a stretch. 

He’d gotten bitten by a vampire. He thought about the possible repercussions of that and froze. Vampire bites. So many of the vampire stories he’d read said that vampire bites turned humans into vampires. He flinched in horror, somehow spilling his hot chocolate all over his hands and lap. “Ow ow ow ow!” Hot chocolate was  _ hot _ . He patted as much hot chocolate as he could off of himself with the soggy blankets and got up to change into fresh clothes for the second time that night. 

How would he know if he’d been infected? Would he know? What if he just randomly up and killed someone and then drank their blood. Ew. That would be so gross and horrifying. How could he just sit around, waiting to see if he turned into some evil monster? But what could he do? The library was his go-to source of information, and it was, of course, closed. He ought to just go to sleep already and figure it out in the morning. But what if he was becoming a vampire? He felt like crying. It was the worst thing in the world. 

He didn’t want to hurt anyone. He didn’t want to be a monster. And he hated not knowing. It was crippling, terrifying. He couldn’t breathe; he was choking. Was this what becoming a vampire was like? His vision was swimming, his head burned. He couldn’t breathe. He clutched at his neck, terrified for a new reason. Was he dying? Was this what’d happened to Jake and Chauncey? He was dying, choking to death. 

Fear. Burning. His face was wet with tears. He was coughing or retching, he wasn’t sure which. He couldn’t breathe. His chest was in agony. There was nothing wrong with him, he just couldn’t choke in a breath. What was wrong with him? Blurry vision, teary. Dark vision. Black around the edges. He could only see a light patch in front of him, and it went black. 

Sam found himself lying prone on the floor with no real memory of how he’d gotten there. His forehead throbbed painfully. What had happened? He sat up slowly, clutching his head. Oh, he hadn’t been able to breathe. He must’ve fainted. It probably had nothing to do with the vampire bite, but he worried anyway. 

What if he got magically kicked out of the house in the morning, not having permission to be there, and then burned in the sunlight or killed someone? His breaths came fast and shallow. He didn’t want to be a monster.  _ He didn’t want to be a monster. _ What was he gonna do if he turned into a vampire? 

Not wanting to faint again, Sam focused on slowing his breathing. He could breathe. Honest. It just took a few minutes. It was just so hard to calm down when he had no way to tell whether things would be ok or not. If he’d understood exactly what being a vampire meant and known for sure that he was becoming one he would’ve been able to focus on handling the future and not on panicking. But since he  _ didn’t know _ there was nothing he knew for sure and thus no way to calm down. 

All he could do was wait an unknown amount of time and see if anything about himself changed. What was enough time? It had already been at least an hour, probably more. Would he know in the morning? In a few days? Next week? A month? He couldn’t survive like this for a month. It was torture. He’d go insane. 

So he could hunt down the vampire who’d bitten him and demand answers, or he could hole up somewhere and study himself to see what was happening. He hated the idea of studying himself. It was terrifying. Hunting a vampire sounded a lot less scary. He could do that. Having a plan was a huge relief, and Sam finally relaxed a bit. He had a plan. It would be ok. He was good. 

Sam fell quickly and deeply asleep. 

Sleeping had been a good idea. Sam felt a lot better in the morning, well, the afternoon, really. His head was clear, and he’d put together a few puzzle pieces in a horrifying way. Lucifer had shown up in Sam’s life when he’d handed him that handkerchief, and then that very night the bully who’d made Sam cry had died. Lucifer hadn’t seemed at all upset about the deaths. Admittedly Sam hadn’t been either, but Jake and Chauncey hadn’t beat Lucifer up all the time. Surely he’d have been at least a bit concerned. 

He’d tried to guide Sam away from his creepy feeling house. Who knew what was in there? It’d just felt  _ wrong _ . And it’d been Lucifer’s idea to go to that plain with the snowless grave. Sam still didn’t know what it was that was there, but it’d been weird. Lucifer must’ve wanted Sam to see that for some reason. 

An odd thought occurred to Sam. Had he seen two sets of footprints in the snow on their walk, or one? Maybe it was two, but he wasn’t sure. Did Lucifer make footprints? 

And the last thing. The whole time he’d walked through the night time woods with Lucifer he’d never once felt like anyone was watching him. But he hadn’t gotten very far away from Lucifer’s house before he’d gotten that creepy feeling there was someone else on the road, and then he’d been attacked. By a vampire. 

It was odd. Sam had expected to be less convinced that vampires were real in the bright, normal light of day. But looking out across the crisp snow, Sam was sure that what he’d felt had been real. He’d been attacked by a vampire. Lucifer. 

Sam was suddenly swept up in a wave of awkward, embarrassed horror. It’d been Lucifer’s fangs, Lucifer’s lips, Lucifer’s hands. Lucifer had grabbed him and held him still, biting down and sucking on his neck, and Sam had turned into a needy mess and come from barely any touch at all. What must Lucifer think of him? 

But he hadn’t killed Sam, and he’d killed the other people he bit, so maybe Sam was special. Maybe Lucifer liked him. He felt sort of giddy and terrified at the same time. What was he going to do?

The obvious thing would be to avoid Lucifer at all costs, and hope to never see him again. Sam knew that was the smart thing, but he felt generally miserable thinking about actually doing it. He was also still possibly turning into a vampire. If he turned it would spoil everything. He liked his life, and he had no idea how to navigate potentially becoming a vampire. 

He needed to see if there was any way to tell if he was turning. Because if he was, then he was going to hunt Lucifer down and find a way to kill him. Sam did NOT want to be a vampire. How would he tell if he was becoming a vampire? He checked the bite mark on his neck in the mirror. If it was swelling or full of green puss that would be a clue. But the little marks looked like they’d been healing well for a little while. Nothing was out of the ordinary. 

Sam poked at them, blushing at the memory of being bitten. He felt like the mirror was mocking him. His cheeks couldn’t be that red, surely. He turned away from the mirror and went over the rest of his body, looking for anything odd. He didn’t have fangs or claws. The sunlight from the window didn’t bother him. He didn’t feel the uncontrollable urge to bite people. Maybe he was safe. 

He distracted himself from the whole vampire thing successfully for a while. He did chores, homework, finally washed his laundry after ignoring the pile for several days, etc. Nearing sunset it got harder to ignore the whole thing. He’d agreed to meet Lucifer at their spot before everything had blown up. Was it fair to ghost him? Would Lucifer get mad? What if he felt hurt, like Sam didn’t like him anymore? Sam’s mind insisted that he didn’t want Lucifer to like him and it didn’t matter, but his heart wasn’t with the program. He didn’t want Lucifer to feel hurt. That’d be awful. 

Sam felt utterly stupid. He was worrying about Lucifer’s feelings, and Lucifer had killed two people. He’d attacked and bitten Sam. And tricked him. He’d spent all day hiking around with a vampire, hunting vampires. He was  _ so stupid _ . And he hated it. He was going to go meet with Lucifer like they’d agreed upon, give him a piece of his mind, and get some answers. Like, why lead Sam on? Was this funny to him? 

Sam’s eyes watered, and he clenched his fists to keep from crying. He was not going to cry over some stupid vampire who didn’t even like him. He wasn’t. So he stormed around the house in a rage which built until it was time to leave if he wanted to meet Lucifer at seven. 

He marched down to meet Lucifer, ready to yell a lot and be really angry. When he saw Lucifer, sitting there on the ground, Sam completely forgot everything he’d been going to say. Typical. He walked over to Lucifer and stood in front of him. That should’ve put Sam in a position of power, but it didn’t feel like it at all as Lucifer looked up at him with cool blue gray eyes. 

“Hi,” Sam said. Hi? Really? That was what came out? Sam wanted to punch himself in the face. 

“Hey, Sam.” Lucifer’s smile was warm. His smile. Which had Sam looking at his lips. Lips that had been sucking Sam’s blood up in the most erotic experience of his life just last night. He tried to remember how to be mad about that. 

“So, uh, what’ve you been up to?” Sam licked his lips nervously. This conversation really wasn’t going according to plan. 

“Are you ok?” Lucifer asked, “You’re acting a bit odd.”

“I- I am? I didn’t notice. You must be seeing things. Everything’s perfectly normal. I’ve just been doing normal things, like walking! I’ve been doing lots of walking. It’s interesting. I mean, it’s not like anything.” Sam gave up. Talking wasn’t working. 

Lucifer stood. 

Sam actually felt less intimidated with Lucifer looming over him than he had when Lucifer had been sitting on the ground. It was odd. Sam swallowed, and he saw Lucifer’s eyes follow the movement. Was Lucifer thinking about his throat, and biting him? Sam wasn’t sure if that’d be terrible or kinda awesome. It was really embarrassing to think about. 

Lucifer’s hand was gentle on the side of Sam’s neck. It was sensual, intimate, and a huge reminder of what Lucifer had done the night before. Sam’s lips parted as he stared up into Lucifer’s eyes. He should probably say something or step away or something, but his feet were frozen and he didn’t think his brain was working correctly. 

His eyes flickered to Lucifer’s lips, remembering the bite, the way it had felt like the best thing in the world. He wondered what it’d feel like if it happened again. He was caught between rival emotions, frozen. Lucifer wasn’t frozen, though. His head tilted to the side a bit as he lowered his head, his lips connecting to Sam’s already open ones. 

It was warm, soft, wet. Sam’s eyes closed without him telling them to. He didn’t know how to kiss back, but he tried to follow the movements of Lucifer’s lips and at least get across that he was very much onboard with this turn of events. He was, wasn’t he? He had no idea. 

It wasn’t like the kisses in books. There was no electricity, no spark. Just an elated, overwhelming tension that spread from where his lips touched Lucifer’s to all throughout his body. There was nothing stopping him from breathing, either. He was constantly taking small, shallow breaths in through his nose. 

Lucifer’s hand moved up, his fingers catching in the hair at the back of Sam’s head and tugging. It wasn’t a harsh tug, just hard enough to sting a bit, but it made Sam gasp and his eyes flew open for a second. That gasp changed something intrinsic in the makeup of the kiss. It wasn’t gentle anymore. It was hard and passionate and life, and suddenly Sam was breathless and dizzy even though he was still breathing just as much. 

Lucifer pulled away, and Sam was left standing there lostly trying to figure out how to do basic things like think, breathe and move. He swallowed. His lips and chin had spit on them. He wiped it off dazedly. 

“You kissed me,” Sam said. 

“Did I break you?” Lucifer asked, amused. 

“Just gimme a moment,” Sam said, “You kissed me.”

“You said that already.”

“Are you a vampire?” Sam blurted. 

Lucifer stilled. “Interesting question. Yes.”

“You bit me,” Sam said.

Lucifer’s fingers played over the bite mark on Sam’s neck. Sam’s breath caught and he bit his lip. 

“You didn’t fight me after I bit down,” Lucifer said. 

Sam looked away. “Is that normal?” he asked, “how I felt?”

“It’s common enough,” Lucifer said. 

Sam nodded, still determinedly staring at the ground. “You killed the other kids. Am I just alive because you want me like  _ that _ ?” He was burning up with anger and his eyes were full of tears. He felt frozen again. 

“No.”

“Great, so why? The bite didn’t do anything to me, right?” It better not have. Was there any way this could get worse?

“The bite won’t turn you, Sam,” Lucifer said, “As for what I want from you, you’re going to perform a spell for me.”

“You know what, Lucifer? You can go fuck yourself and your stupid spells,” Sam said, turning his back and storming off. He was half expecting Lucifer to grab him and stop him, but nothing happened. He just stomped for a while until he got near his home and started crying for no reason. His head was so mixed up he didn’t even know what he was thinking. 

“I hate him!” Sam yelled furiously at his front door. He went inside, viciously kicked the wall a few times, and sunk down to the floor in the kitchen, sobbing. 

Some time later Sam got up, blew his nose, washed his face, went to his room and tried to read a book. He found himself reading the same page over and over, not really grasping what it was talking about. Reading did help him feel a little better, though. More in control of his life. His head still hurt and he wanted to never feel anything again, but it was less awful. 

He fell asleep for a little while. It was fitful, and he didn’t feel rested when he woke up. His headache had subsided at least. 

Sam fidgeted unhappily. He couldn’t stand this. He wanted to do something. He didn’t care that much what, but he couldn’t leave the conversation with Lucifer where it was. He needed something. He didn’t know what, he just knew that it wasn’t working and something needed to be different. So he was determined. He would walk to Lucifer’s house, talk to him, yell and scream at him, kiss him, punch him, something. He’d figure it out when he got there, and there’d be some sort of resolution to the mess. 

He’d been out walking after dark so often over the last few days that even with the whole vampire thing the night time walk to Lucifer’s house felt like nothing. Lucifer’s house, however, felt incredibly dark. He swallowed nervously. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. He wasn’t going to turn back, though. They were gonna have this talk, even if it was a horrible idea and would probably end in an even worse disaster than their last talk. 

Sam knocked on the door and waited. He felt cheated when Lucifer didn’t answer. It wasn’t reasonable, but he felt like after he’d come all this way to have a really important talk and nearly turned back, when he did get up the courage to go through with it Lucifer ought to answer immediately. 

Sam knocked again. “Lucifer! We’re talking. Now.”

There was no answer. Sam waited a minute before trying the door. It was locked. He huffed indignantly. “Lucifer!”

There was a window on the front of the house. It was screenless and unlocked, so Sam just pushed the window up and scrambled inside. “Lucifer!” he yelled again. The house was dark and felt empty. 

The whole house was just one room. It dank, dirty and empty. Sam immediately understood why Lucifer wasn’t there. If he lived in a house like that he’d spend all his time out, too. There were three windows, none of them with screens or curtains, but the dirt on them blocked the residual light from outdoors anyway. He felt around by the door for a light switch and came up empty. He guessed vampires didn’t need light. 

Was there anything in the room? He stumbled around, squinting. There was a big wooden box on the floor in the corner farthest from the windows. A coffin? Sam struggled with the lid, really, really hoping that he wasn’t about to discover a rotting corpse. The coffin was empty. That was disappointing, but maybe Lucifer slept there in the daytime. He shoved the lid back on and checked out the rest of the place. 

He found a laptop computer sitting on a box. He opened the laptop and was able to get it going, but it was password protected so he gave up. Invading Lucifer’s privacy like that would be rude, not to mention difficult. But the box wasn’t password protected. 

Just inside the box he found a notebook. Sam flipped through it, and he could tell that it was full of pictures, but it was too dark to see what they were of. Thinking, he held the notebook in the screen glow from the laptop. The cover was navy blue, with one word inscribed on the front in silver.  _ Gabriel. _ Wasn’t that Lucifer’s little brother’s name? The one who was dead? It was a common enough name that could refer to any number of people, but here in the one box that seemed to contain all of Lucifer’s stuff it must mean his little brother. 

Feeling guiltily like an intruder, Sam flipped the book open to the first page.  _ Property of Hael Phipps-Shurley.  _ And below it:  _ from Chuck, for my artist. I’m so glad you joined my family.  _

All the other pages were drawings of Gabriel. They got better as Sam flipped farther. It was like Hael was getting to know him as she drew him, going from drawing a stranger to creating images that captured Gabriel’s heart and personality. Just looking through the sketchbook was making Sam wish he could’ve met Gabriel. 

Near the end it got darker. There were circles under Gabriel’s eyes, and he looked sad and worried. And then it just stopped, cut off in the middle of a sketch. The back of the sketchbook was just empty page after empty page. 

Sam set it aside, an unhappy, uncomfortable feeling settling in his stomach. He looked at the rest of the box. There was a mini notebook. He wasn’t sure he wanted to look at it, but he did. He found some weird grocery list. It wasn’t all that weird, there was just a ton more juice on the list than made sense with how much of everything else there was. He flipped through. Lots of groceries, all with unreasonable amounts of juice. Maybe it was a vampire thing. 

Sam hit the jackpot. A list of passwords. One was listed as ‘laptop’. So of course Sam put the password into the laptop, and it opened. There was a lot of confusing, unorganized information open on the laptop. It looked like Lucifer was trying to locate something while researching necromancy and resurrection. 

Finally Sam found a document labeled ‘notes’ that made some sense. At the top there were coordinates, and the name of Sam’s town. Also Sam’s home address labeled  _ John Winchester _ . Sam bit his lip. This was weird. He read down the notes. 

_ found grave- shovels no good. has to be magic _

_ blood magic- will require sex virgin? optional? _

_ Virgin not optional _

_ virgins: Sam Sam only virgin old enough found close _

_ keep Sam alive options: iron supplement? doctor? maybe heater _

<strike> _ let Sam die?  _ </strike>

_ find other virgin? _

_ tuesday no time _

_ Sam won’t do it  _

_ trick him? make him? priority figure out _

Well, that was telling. Sam wasn’t gonna do it. He didn’t know Gabriel, and Gabriel was dead. It wasn’t his problem. 


End file.
